For those of you that won't read the whole article, let me summarize:
1. Eight years ago a woman gets a job at Wal-Mart which includes health benefits.
2. Shortly thereafter she gets in a horrible car accident, racking up $470,000 in medical bills.
3. Wal-Mart's health insurer paid every dime.
4. Woman sues the trucking company and is awarded $1 million.
5. After legal fees, woman recieves $417,000 from the settlement.
6. Wal-Mart's health insurer wants their share of the lawsuit ($470,000).
7. Math doesn't work out ($417,000 - $470,000 < 0)
This is a little known but distinctly real phenomenon and law structure in the United States: If you get injuried and sue for medical bills, pain and suffering, and future lost wages, the company that paid all of your medical bills (you were suing to recover damages for that, right?) is entitled to recover what you sued for.
Now the observant reader will notice that there's a problem right in between steps 4 and 5. That problem is that $587,000
What we have here is a case of corporate greed not by Wal-Mart, but by her attorneys who were supposed to be protecting her interests.
Sadness indeed. Not to mention that her husband has health problems and she lost her son within 2 weeks of serving our country in Iraq. A horrible story, and horribly skewed.
Now, Wal-Mart, whose health insurer is Blue Cross / Blue Shield, is getting another bad rap. I dislike Wal-Mart as much as the next guy, but this is just an unfair blow by CNN.
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1 comment:
ok, OBVIOUSLY I have an opinion on this (haha).
in the instance there wasn't a clause in the health insurance policy (that walmart could recover the money if there was a lawsuit against someone else for medical bills) - EVERYONE would 'double-dip'. as in - let's say, a person gets in a car accident, has $50K in medical bills, files through her work insurance which will cover something like $45K of it (with the other $5K being the deductible, etc.), THEN will turn to the other person's car insurance and say "I have $50K in med bills", get $50K, pay the deductible and pocket the 45K (and suddenly the day of the accident has become the happiest day of his/her life). so walmart has it's multitude of ethical problems, but i don't think this is one of them. in our litigious society, i think the clause is absolutely necessary to protect from insurance fraud.
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